


Faded Memories

by becuzmdsaidineededpersonality



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Aftermath, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, The Big One, allusions to ending A, but canon ending no one dies, except the corporate meanies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:49:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29605518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becuzmdsaidineededpersonality/pseuds/becuzmdsaidineededpersonality
Summary: Michael wants to celebrate The Big One.It becomes a problem when Trevor won't shut the fuck up.
Relationships: Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	Faded Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mourn3d](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mourn3d/gifts), [trepidatingboarfetus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepidatingboarfetus/gifts).



> Also for this person: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/pricklydumbbell
> 
> (Please go check out these three amazing people. https://trepidatingboarfetus.tumblr.com/ and https://mourn3d.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> They literally have been incredible to me and just wonderful and amazing authors and I couldn't ask for a better trio of writing buddies...)
> 
> Alright, mates...so this is my first time writing sexy anything so please be merciful...

The trio watched the Big Good trucks drive away, holding the precious gold in place, in a protective and secretive space, perfectly concealed away from the world until Lester could melt down those sweet bars and sell them for more cash than the three could have ever pictured in their minds a few months ago.

Even sharing the cut with the heist crew, it would still would be too fucking much. 

Trevor's mouth felt dry rather than the satisfied wetness he was used to feeling after a successful job. 

Honestly, he should be....he just pulled off one of the biggest scores of his lifetime...of anyone else's lifetime, for that matter. 

But that damn fucking uniforms they had to wear moments ago...standing in the elevator with that snake...

Trevor looked up to realize he was being left behind as Michael and Franklin went into the van as he tripped over his heels attempting to catch up. Michael tossed the keys over the roof to Franklin as they piled into the car. 

Trevor went to sit behind Franklin so he could keep a close eye on a particular snake.

Fool him once shame on Michael, fool him twice shame on all three of them. 

"Alright, those guys will take care of the metal. Lester's meeting us at my place."

Oh, great. So now Trevor was being forced to spend more time with this asshole and now Lester was gonna be there too. 

Great. Just perfect. 

And the gold was off somewhere out of Trevor's reach...the whole thing seemed pretty suspicious. 

"Hang on, hang on. We're just leaving the gold?" Trevor looked to Franklin as he said it...hoping to get an ally in the soon-to-be argument.

But Franklin wasn't looking at either one of them. 

Franklin was looking at the road and seemingly avoiding Trevor's gaze on purpose. Michael was too as he went to casually flip through the stations on the dial until he got to the Los Santos Rock station. "Yepper."

_Michael and his damn movie quotes._

"Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold?"

Michael chuckled, attempting to gain control of the quickly rising tension. "Hey, T. Have a little faith."

That had Trevor seeing red immediately. 

"What...faith...in you buddy?" Trevor cruelly scoffed. Franklin rolled his eyes and Trevor gave a proper kick to the back of his seat. 

"Alright. In Lester. In the process. Come on. We've been through this a million times! Any fool can take a score." Michael turned to point a condescending finger upwards in Trevor's direction. "It's getting away clean that makes the difference between those who walk free and those who do not."

Franklin was laughing too then and nudged Michael on the passenger's side. "Man, I won't know what to do with that shit. I'm guessing you won't either man."

Trevor could have dropped it then...but on the other hand...

"I'm sorry. I'm just having some _trusting_ issues right now, Franklin." 

Trevor could see Michael grinding his jaw from there before playing it off with his normal preachy, hypocritical bullshit while motioning with his hands like he _always_ felt the need to do.

"If we get away with this. IF...and it's a big if, man...then I can finally, really retire." 

Trevor nudged the back of Franklin's seat with his foot. "Watch it, Frank. Michael likes to retire with a very interesting exit strategy." 

Franklin sighed in annoyance. "Come on, man. I mean, we just took the biggest score in the history of scores, and all you bitches just wanna moan! _My momma never loved me, my friends never loved me, I'm mad because I'm rich._ Man, this shit is pathetic! Both of you!" 

"Oh, I am _so_ sorry..."

Michael chose to ignore that. "Hey! We did it assholes! _We_ did it!" 

Trevor groaned in annoyance, crossed his arms, and decided to look out the window for the majority of the time as the soft pop of Franklin hitting the turn signal tore through the uncomforterable silence. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Michael pop his neck in the silence before he glanced up into the mirror to fix his hair. 

Trevor watched him with mild interest and the faded memories of laughter and skin-on-skin contact flooded his memory but was cut short by a cold glare in his direction from the other side of the card those memories implied...some of which were more recent. 

Michael eventually looked away and shifted to a more comfortable position, presumably to watch the series of the concrete jungle pass through his sightline, glaring with that particular pettiness that made Trevor want to punch him between the eyes. 

Fucking snake...

Fuckig traitor...

Trevor almost jumped when he realized they were at the house. The silence had made him doze out a bit...the last of his speed finally wearing off. 

The stained glass doors opened and Lester came fumbling out with a glass of scotch in hand as the trio left the car. 

"Gentlemen!"

Michael waved Franklin over. "Lester!"

"We just made history-"

Trevor raised his hand impatiently. "I don't want to ask a dumb question here but where is the metal?" 

"I've got it on lockdown for the next few days while I'm waiting for the go-ahead to melt it and move it," Lester said as he descended the front porch stairs. 

Not fucking good enough...

"Where?"

Lester chuckled as though the entire thing was a joke and it only made to piss off Trevor more. "Exactly! Where is just the point! Let's say somebody gets pinched...well then where is the evidence? Or if anyone gets any silly ideas then they'll just be futile."

Trevor snarled under his breath as Michael looked away. "So we can take it easy here knowing it's gonna be a few days before Judas here shows his true colors!"

Michael narrowed his eyes...the audacity of the bastard to get mad now. "Really? Now?" Michael's fists curled. 

"Yeah. Now, sugar."

"Why don't you take a moment while you're sitting on that big fat pile of cash to chill the fuck out and realize what's done is done!"

"Whatever you say alright!"

"Well, this is a good time!" Franklin said, rolling his eyes. 

"It's his fucking fault! Fuck you!" The both of them said out of synch, backing away before the situation escalated into physicality in all the wrong ways as Lester stood up to wave his hands between the two. 

"Hey, hey, hey, hey! For a couple of midwest, stick-up artists, you guys sure have become a pair of west douchebags!"

Franklin stepped forward. "Man what the fuck is wrong with the west coast!"

"Oh, nothing! I just love it here! Everyone is just so numbed by the sun that if you use a three-syllable-word people think you're a professor!" Lester sneered towards Franklin as Michael looked sympathetically between the two...or as sympathetically as he could. 

"Ah, fuck you!"

Pathetic, the lot of them. 

"YEAH FUCK YOU, YOU HIGH AND MIGHTY WEASEL!" He angrily screeched as he moved closer to the now cowering Lester. Why the fuck did everyone do that when he was just trying to impart life lessons. He pointed to Lester's chest. "AND YOU! Don't talk down them to these two fucking idiots!"

"HEY! Leave Lester alone!"

Trevor glared towards the interruption that, of course, came from Michael. "Oh, are you and Lester together now? Oh, now that makes fucking sense!" 

Franklin took a step back, anger reverberating on his face as he started angrily marching down the driveway. "Oh, for fuck's sake man! You all assholes! Man, I got to go calm down. This shit was real illuminating."

"Franklin! I'm sorry! Come on back and have a beer or something..." Michael called after him. Franklin had actually made it to the end of the driveway before turning back. Michael gave Trevor a warning look as they walked into the house. 

The first drink was tense and no one said much and the floor became the most interesting thing in the room. Michael poured the shots and handed them around. He was tempted to spill Trevor's right onto his lap but handed it to him instead. The dick decided to grumble about the flavor after he practically took Michael's fingers off snatching it up before flipping it back. 

"Watch it, asshole..." 

Trevor only groaned angrily in response. 

Several times Michael attempted to get the ball rolling on conversation, only getting pity chuckles and grunts of approval from Lester and Franklin. Trevor stared at the floor until the third joke, not being able to take one more of Michael's stolen dad jokes one second longer, cleared his throat, shook his head and a soft but aggressive "Just stop, Michael."

Michael, being the ever clueless, prissy, self-absorbed asshole simply looked up slightly confused. "What?"

" _What, what?_ Seriously, if you would fucking pull your head out of your ass every now and then, you would be able to read a fucking room!"

"Oh, really man? We just pulled the biggest score in history! The fucking FIB, IAA, and the entire San Andreas police force could be bursting through my door tomorrow! Hell, they might even be on their way right now! Can't we all just enjoy our fucking selves for once!" 

"Oh? And who's fucking fault would that be!"

"Excuse me? How would it be my fucking fault!"

"That Casey guy or whatever the fuck his name was! God, you are so fucking predictable you know that? All your stupid little self-righteous power moves! Does it make you feel better that you can make decisions you think are miles better than mine when, in reality, they are only slightly better!"

"I don't know what the fuck you are talking about!"

"Yes, you fucking do!"

Michael leaped up at that. "What's that supposed to mean you fucking prick-"

Franklin grabbed Michael's sleeve and attempted to pull him back down. "Come on, man. Don't be like that! Both of you! Damn! Shit's pathetic! Both of you!"

The awkward silence lasted for a bit longer, though once the alcohol began pouring through their bloodstream things became much more easier to discuss, topics of nonsense and past blended together, and soon they were blabbering on about Lester's video game high scores and Franklin's new house decorations. Michael was laughing stupidly with a mix between a horrifying jackal and a clown hyena while Lester's face was literally turning purple from wheeze laughing about the dog shit joke that just came from Franklin's lips. The alcohol had worked it's magic, making the room spin happily...

For a second that was...before the joyous laughter became a dark and empty void sucking Michael in again. He turned on the tv, flipping carelessly through the channels as the other three laughed hysterically at the various colors and sounds...every onomanpia and hue becoming the punchline to some joke the alcohol swimming in their synapses were telling, that the outside world just wouldn't get. 

They ordered pizza...more like Trevor ordered pizza...even paid for it...Michael was half surprised when Trevor paid for it himself and even gave the zit, matted hair teen a decent-sized tip. He was half expecting Trevor to try and force one of them to pay for it...or worst-case scenario, having to pull away Trevor from killing the pizza guy because he dared to be paid for his efforts. 

They had also gotten some Sprunk two liters and lazily spread out on the couch. 

But as soon as the high of the fresh pizza and the hiss of soda and booze mixing and the nonsensical laughter died down the void was there and Michael found himself heading for the stairs but forced himself to stay...

Franklin stood up and attempted to walk a few steps before gravity had its cruel way, pulling him down, causing Lester to laugh wildly. Franklin properly flicked him off. 

"Alright, you crazy fools...takin'...cab...back to my...place..."

Michael shook his head and reached out to grasp Franklin's ankle, pulling him slightly across the rug. "Not like that you're not. Take the guest bedroom. Second door on the left. Sleep it off."

"No man...gotta go check on...Chop..."

"So get Lamar to do it." Trevor wheezed from the corner. "That or the woman you insist on letting boss you around...the one with the bad hair job..."

Franklin moaned as he attempted to think back to the life outside of the walls. "You mean...Tonya..."

"Damn, what it is it with you and gettin' into shit with girls with the letter T."

Franklin narrowed his eyes towards Trevor. 

"Alright, Trevor enough..." Michael warned before getting the double meaning of the joke and chuckling to himself. "Guess that trouble don't just extend to girls now..."

It took Trevor a moment to get it, causing Michael and Franklin to laugh harder. Trevor scrunched his nose up like a toddler once the realization crossed his mind. 

"Ah, fuck both of you!"

That made them laugh harder. 

Trevor kicked his shoes towards them which Michael caught with ease...well not quite with but then again Trevor's skills were a tad sluggish with all the alcohol...though he somehow always managed to hold his liquor way better than Michael did for reasons Michael suspected but didn't really want the answers to, as they too closely resembled shadows of his own past he still wasn't nearly ready to ride...

Franklin pushed himself up to lean his back up against the couch, rubbing his eyes tiredly. It had been a long day for all of them...

Michael smiled haphazardly as he tapped the side of Franklin's exposed ankle, peaking through his sock. "Tired?"

Franklin shrugged sleepily. 

Michael got up off the floor with a groan and mumbled a "Wait here," as he fumbled up the stairs to fetch some pajamas. They'd be too big for Franklin but, eh...

Better than having none at all. 

He fumbled down the stairs with the folded, striped pajamas as leverage before shoving them into a surprised Franklin's arm. 

Michael outreached his hand and hoisted Franklin up. "Come on, kid. Let's get you to bed." 

Franklin groaned in annoyance but allowed himself to be dragged down the hallway near the bookshelves to the spare guest room.   
  


"Here you are...don't mind the yoga balls and mats thrown everywhere. Amanda has forgotten how to pick up her shit without Eva helping her out and...well...you know how Eva can be..."

Franklin shrugged causally. "Yeah, man. Shit. I don't want to make more work for anyone...you know me."

Michael nodded and clapped Franklin on the shoulder. 

"There's a guest bathroom to your right and there is probably some soap and hair stuff in there if you need it." Michael attempted to point to the bathroom but his arm slacked a bit from the alcohol in his system.

Franklin scratched the back of his neck with an unreadable expression on his face. "Yeah...thanks, man."

"No problem, kid." 

Michael stumbled out into the living room to find Lester slouched over the edge of the couch and snoring loudly, his face beet red from the copious amounts of alcohol they had been drinking.

Trevor, of course, was rummaging through the fridge and throwing packages everywhere like a rabid animal. He stood up straight and slammed the fridge with all the grace of an angry oaf before sliding up onto the island to give Michael an impertinent look, as though he had done nothing wrong before going to rip off the sealed package of the block of cheese he was holding. 

"So I suppose you're kicking me out."

Michael sighed. He was not ready to deal with this shit tonight. "No Trevor. You can do whatever the hell you want. We're probably gonna be dead in a couple of days anyway." 

"Man, you and your fucking downer attitude! We just took the biggest score of our lives and all you want to do is mope. Fucking typical!" Trevor scoffed before chowing down on the block of cheese. 

"Yeah, _real_ classy, T. Real classy."

"Fuck off!" Trevor scowled, spitting cheese up all over the tiles.

Michael threw a hand behind him "Yeah, just don't fucking destroy the place, otherwise, I'll beat your ass!" 

He couldn't exactly hear the latter part of Trevor's response as the cheese was muffling it as he trudged towards the stairs to sleep off the stress, anger, and rising guilt he was feeling bubbling around in his head and chest like acid. 

Seeing the closed doors to his children's vacant rooms didn't help much either...

It had been about a week since the whole incident when Devin Weston sent his Merryweather goons to kill his wife and child. The bullet markings were still along the walls if one looked hard enough.

To say Eva and Carlos were not happy to have to clean up bullet marks with spare paintbrushes and fix the destroy hedges before Hayden decided to have the Rockford Hills Homeowners Association on all of their asses was an understatement. It was a borderline miracle he was able to make up some bullshit about a live-re-enactment of one of the Meltdown action scenes that didn't make the cut for the premiere date and that Hayden actually bought it.

Fucking asshole had to stick his nose into everything!

Just like another particular tattooed asshole who was currently eating cheese like a feral animal down in his kitchen.

The entire thing was strange and kind of ironically funny in that horrific sense of universal justice was the one thing that had unintentionally put his family in harm's way was for something he didn't even do. 

All the shit he got away with and it was some rich assholes second-in-command punching bag getting herself sucked into an airplane jet over a movie with digital copies was the thing that came back to bite him in the ass. 

Well...maybe that wasn't entirely true.

But it sure felt like it in moments like this. 

It had also been about a week since he had to say goodbye to his family and leave them at the FIB safehouse Dave had them sent to. It was...hard...to hug them goodbye, not knowing when, or more importantly _if_ , he was ever going to be able to see them again. 

And now he had gone and added this new problem for all of them with robbing the union depository, in some valiant effort to make sure that a psycho from his past did not come and kill his entire family and only cause more problems for himself.

Plus, he owed it to the kid as well although this may have been a curse in disguise as now he's pulling in Franklin into all this drama and bullshit and the legal implications and troubles that had yet to rear it's ugly head. 

Lester had assured them all that they would find a way around these little roadblocks and that he had been planning this for a while now, even if it wasn't necessarily going to have Michael and Trevor involved, but still the annoying doubts and nagging voices of regret continued to filter through his skull, and all the possible what-if scenarios continue to play over and over again in his mind.

When he was running around with Trevor back in North Yankton, it never seemed fully surreal as it did now, of the fact of how easy it was for people to get to him through his family.

He always considered himself the good guy among many bad and shady characters...that philiosphoy had kept him alive all this time and what made sure his family didn't become food for the worms, or dead somewhere out in the middle of the desert, or at the bottom of the ocean, or buried alive, were the only remnants of what little information of their lives would be played over and over again on reruns of the Underbelly of Paradise for wine moms and conspiracy theorists to come up with nonsensical theory is about aliens somehow being involved on the darker forms of Bleeter and Lifeinvader...

But still, they were alive and protected. And that had to mean something. 

At the very least it was one thing Dave was good for but it was best not to let his mind dwindle to those darker places of things...things that he had unfortunately seen far too often in both the realm of fiction and reality.

Oftentimes reality tended to be more terrifying than anything any vinewood director with enough of a budget to make a convincing blood splatter could ever concoct within their own imaginary minds...or perhaps just didn’t have the balls to go there in fear of losing that oh so precious ticket sale of the young minds of today who wouldn’t be able to get nuanced meanings of a spoon.

Fucking typical.

Michael kicked off his shoes, removed his suit jacket, and removed his dress shirt, throwing them on the floor unceraimoniusly behind him before reaching down to pop open his belt. 

He fell dramatically face-first onto the bed while wiggling the pants off his ankles, murmuring a series of swears when he heard the all too familiar steps of a particular annoyance he was not ready to deal with right now come up behind him. 

"M, you're out of cheese."

Michael groaned and turned his head to glare at Trevor who was giving him a murderous glance. "What?"

Trevor crept closer, slinking like a leopard in the dark. " _I said_ you're out of cheese..."

Michael took in a deep breath and politely reminded the irrational part of himself that he had just gotten his family back and getting a broken neck over something this stupid was not fucking worth it.

"Well, what the fuck do you want me to do about it!"

"What do you think? Give me your fucking wallet so I can go buy some more!"

Michael shoved Trevor's prying hands away from his suit pockets. "No, you dick! Cut that shit out! Go buy your own cheese if you're pig enough to devour an entire block of cheese in the five seconds it took me to walk up the stairs, you can go buy your own fucking cheese with your own damn money! It's not like you won't have enough soon anyways!"

“Weren't you the one that was going on and on about us getting caught not even two hours ago!”

“How in God's name did you manage to devour six blocks of cheese, Trevor? Not even my son can do that!”

Trevor gasped as though Michael had just insulted him somehow. “Michael, you dim-whited mindless cunt! I know your binge eating has gone out of hand in the last decade but we ain’t all like that! Some of us actually have creative and original thoughts running through our minds!”

Fear rose in Michael's chest about the various implications that Trevor's words carried. “Well, what the fuck were you using the cheese for?”

“Art.”

“What?”

“Cheese sculpting? Hello? Don’t tell me the sun has really dulled your creativity that fucking much! I‘m trying to build something and the pathetic cheese stash you have just ain’t gonna cut it!”

Michael pressed two fingers to the tip of his nose as he tried to wrap his head around the insanity and absurdity that was the being that stood before him and the absolute ridiculousness of what had just been said.

When Michael didn't answer right away, Trevor went to reach for Michael's wallet once again.

“Yeah, so anyways I'm going to need more cheese and considering the fact that you are a traitorous snake who let me think that you were dead for over a decade, I consider this makes us even.”

And that was when Michael’s temper returned, almost to the boiling point.

“I thought we were already even from all the gold we just stole! Isn't that what you said back in the alleyway? That we would be fucking square after this? Did I not do as you asked? How long are you going to keep holding this over my fucking head? It was a long time ago man and you need to get the fuck over it!”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…strange. It's almost like you're in the wrong here and this entire thing wasn't about money to begin with! But typical you! Always thinking about yourself first!”

Michael sprung up until he was face to face with Trevor and could feel the hot, angry, breath waffling from his nostrils onto Michael's lips.

“OH REALLY? I'm the selfish one in this case? Why don't you take a moment while you're calculating your new bank account statements and the sheer amount of money you’re about to have lining your pockets before you come here and try and tell me who's selfish, because, let's be real here, T, there's no way you could have ever pulled something off like this by yourself!”

Trevor shoved at his shoulders so harshly that Michael had to grab the nightstand to stay upright.

“Oh please! I offer you mercy and you insult me like I’m some fuckin idiot! I could have pulled off a score like this!”

Michael laughed cruelly…right into Trevor’s stupid, fucking sneer.

“Oh no, you couldn’t have! Come on now, T! Don’t tell me meth has dulled your memory that badly! The fucking disaster that was the superweapon you stole ringing any fucking bells! Or how about the time you kidnapped that Madrazo lady and dragged me into your shit trailer so you could play Freudian politics! Huh? Turd! That getting through to yah!”

"Don't insult my home!"

"Well don't use my food for your stupid little hipster art projects!"

"IT'S NOT HISPTER!"

"Is so!"

"Is not!"

"Pull out your damn phone right fucking now and look up food art on eyefinder and tell me what the first-word association that comes up is!"

"Oh so now you're playing into stereotypes now!"

"Like you never have!"

"Hey! I call people out when they needed to be called out! And hipsters...let me tell you-"

"That why you felt it necessary to slaughter over a dozen of em in front of a coffee shop a few weeks ago, T? Did that make you feel good? Do you feel better about yourself? Are you proud? Is your self-loathing so knee-deep in bullshit and delusional thinking that you can't take a look in the goddamn mirror and actually see what's staring back at you!"

"I could ask you the same thing!"

"Oh really? Do I kidnap mob bosses' wives? Do I get into petty disputes with bikers and Mexicans and every other gang under the sun? Do I sell drifters and hitchhikers to cultists for cheap money so I can go get high on glass?"

"NO! But at least I didn't sell out my friends to some fucking FIB agents!"

"I got a fucking family! We've been over this!"

"Oh, sure! Blame them you fucking Judas!"

"Oh, I'm sure that's so easy for you to say considering the fact you could never understand my point of view!"

Trevor crossed his arms. "And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

  
"Ah, well you know Trev...you ain't exactly the kind of man anyone would ever want to have a family with."

"Bold choice of words for someone who has become the shadow of his father."

Michael stopped for a moment. Blinked twice before the boiling anger overtook him like a tsunami. 

"What the fuck did you just say to me?"

"You heard me."

"Take it back."

Trevor just snorted. Michael's fists clenched by his sides. 

"I ain't playing around Trevor. Take it back right fucking now!"

"Make me."

Alright. Final straw. 

As though his arms were acting on their own accord, his fingers snaked towards Trevor's throat and pushed him back up against the corner of the wall right beside the drawn curtains. Once there, he pushed his thumbs down, slowly cutting the oxygen off. 

"Take. It. Back."

"What are you gonna do, Mikey? Gonna hit me this time!"

In response, Michael pressed down harder. 

"Go ahead and hit me you fucking coward!"

Michael could do it.

He really could end it. 

Right here.

Right fucking now. 

Strangle Trevor to death. 

Watch the hazel eyes roll into the back of his head like two marbles as his inked skin turned a sickly blue before his body went limp like a rag doll. 

Take Trevor's cut from the score. 

Or better yet blame the whole thing on Trevor. 

Never have to worry about this asshole ever pulling him into his bullshit ever again. 

Trevor's body began to sprawl around like a puppet on strings, attempting to weakly pry the fingers from his throat but there was no real intent behind the actions. Just his survival instincts kicking in and the pitiful wheezes for air became like music to Michael's ears as he went on to silence them completely once and for all...

Trevor could have easily, easily kicked Michael in his more vulnerable parts or punched him in the face but instead settled for acting helpless and stringy. 

He could kill him. 

But for a split second, the red hue spreading across Trevor's face was no longer a physical indication of nearing asphyxiation but the remaining red powder of a flare gun...the tattoos faded away and all that was left was a young face with a shy, but crazed, smile reaching out a hand. 

The face of the present returned for a moment and this time it was the man who held the sniper rifle and saved him from the Merryweather chopper, it was the man who wrapped his arms around him as they huddled in the center console during a level three blizzard in the middle of nowhere, hoping and praying they wouldn't die and yet-

Michael couldn't do it. 

Even after all this time...

He released his fingers all at once and pressed his fingers to the sides of his now throbbing temples, turning away from Trevor who fell down the wall to his knees and was sucking in breaths like it was water. 

Then all the stress, agony, and guilt of the last 24 hours...no the past few months...no the past decade...came reverberating around his skull and nervous system like a firecracker and he felt an agonizing scream of frustration of something else he wasn't quite too sure of, leaving his lips and throat without his consent, releasing the tension of the past few years as Trevor began to cackle wildly on the floor, still gasping for oxygen.

"I knew you couldn't do it you fucking coward! Even when you have nothing to lose, you're weak!"

Michael kicked the nightstand so hard the lamp fell over and whirled around to face Trevor as he was getting to his feet. 

"DO YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING IDEA HOW MANY LIVES I'VE TAKEN? THE ENTIRE GRAVEYARDS I'VE FILLED? HOW MANY TIMES I'VE WATCHED A MAN BLEED TO DEATH BENEATH MY FINGERS? SO DON'T YOU EVER, EVER TRY TO COME HERE AND ACT LIKE YOU KNOW ME!"

"I do know you, you asshole! You're my best fucking friend! We were made for each other...I know you better than everyone else which is why you hate me. I'm the only one in your pathetic sad excuse of a life who doesn't lie or make excuses for you or try to get something from you or desperately look for the good parts so I can over look the bad! No! I see you for who you are and accept all of it because _we are the same_!"

"I'm not the same! I'm not like you! Not at all!"

"You kill people and you satisfy your urges-"

"No! You see that's the difference between you and me is I feel actual remorse and regret and guilt for the things that I do! Why do you think I drown out every second with copious amounts of alcohol? Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe just because I did some similar things to you, that I don't enjoy this life! I don't enjoy killing and harming people! I don't enjoy everyone, including my own fucking family being too scared to look at me some days because they think that I'm just going to snap and slaughter them like the fucking monster they think I am!"

Trevor growled. "And you don't think that I have regrets? You don't think that there's things in my mind that don't play over and over again or things that I legitimately wish I hadn't done!"

Un-fucking-believeable.

"Strange! You say that yet you continue to pour out your entire life to these deviant activities! You getting into harder drugs, you continue to dive deeper and deeper into the pit of degeneracy while crawling around with the filth of the earth, abusing others, and selling people to cannibals! Hell, I've seen you eat human flesh as though it's chicken on a Tuesday! Continuing to paint yourself as the biggest monster in the room, but yeah, sure pal. You have regrets but have done absolutely zip to change anything about your lifestyle! In fact, you actively make it worse simply to piss me off or to give the middle finger to society or to prove _your mummy_ wrong! But at least I did something! I tried to get out! You pulled me back in! I'm trying to get out again but you won't let me go!" 

Trevor rolled his eyes.

"And yes! Getting out of that lifestyle really did wonders for you, Mikey! Look at this wonderful house, where you sit around on your ass all day drinking enough for an elephant overdose on, talking with a therapist who could care less about your problems and your precious regret that you hold onto so dearly, ignoring your family and friends, until you realize they’re gone always the cheerleader but never the player in your own life!"

It won't have hurt if it wasn't so accurate.

"Fuck you, Trevor! Fuck you! You know damn well I’m turning over a new leaf! I got Solomon now and my family back! So fuck you!"

"And yeah, because that worked out so fucking well last time! The happy endings, the second chances, remember? And yet here you stand, all alone, arguing with someone that you claim to hate but don't even have the decency to properly put down even though you're given so many opportunities to do so!"

Michael stepped menacingly close...but of course Trevor didn't even fucking flinch. 

Fucking typical. 

"So, is that what you want, Trevor? For me to kill you? Beat in your brain with a baseball bat? Throw you over the rails to my porch? Run you over with my car? You want me to fucking kill you is that it

"Maybe...maybe not...you don't know me at all!"

Michael laughed cruelly. "I know this…how lonely you fucking are. No one ever wants to be around you!"

"And yet here you stand!" Trevor stated the obvious, motioning towards Michael like he was nothing.

"The fuck do you want from me? Why do you keep doing this? What the fuck did you come back for?"

"ONE LAST SCORE!"

"THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL IN MY FUCKING HOUSE!"

"I COULD ASK YOU THE SAME FUCKING THING!"

"THAT QUESTION DIDN’T EVEN FUCKING MAKE ANY SENSE!"

"OH, THERE YOU GO AGAIN! BEIN’ A HATER!"

"WHAT? I-you-I just-"

And that was when Michael grabbed Trevor by his sleeves and slammed their lips together, drinking in the demonic ecstasy. 

Trevor tensed at first but threw himself fully in...biting, sucking, puckering, breathing in deeply. His hands went up and down Michael's sides and squeezed his ass through his boxers. 

Michael pulled them both down onto the side of the bed into a half-sitting position as the two began to grope up each other. Michael pulled Trevor onto his lap and moved his fingers roughly up Trevor's arms as he began to reach to pull off his stained shirt before he felt something that could only be described as feeling like eraser scraps. 

Michael lifted his hand as Trevor went to roughly suck on his neck to find his inner palm and fingers lined with cheese shavings. He blinked in surprise and looked down to find the back of Trevor's shirt was covered in cheese and so were his arms and what little of the seat of Trevor's pants Michael could see, illuminated by what little light remained of the hallway. 

If Michael was sober, he probably would have been more pissed off but his fogged-over brain was highlighting just how absolutely ridiculous and absurdly hilarious this entire situation was and he couldn't help but giggle. He turned his head to allow Trevor's teeth to sink in the skin above his collarbones and saw Trevor had the shavings clumped in his hair as well and that made him laugh harder. 

"Something funny asshole?" Trevor growled from the space wrapped in Michael's arms. He somehow didn't let up with his tongue and mouth. 

Michael shook his head as much as he could with Trevor there lapping at his adam's apple. "You're just so-I hate you so fucking much..."

"Mmmmm...you say that but yet your body says otherwise..." Trevor murmured as he went to lick Michael's collarbones while grinding his knee into Michael's telltale erection. 

Michael reached up and began roughly slipping the cheese strands from Trevor's matted hair. "This is gonna get everywhere on my bed and all smooshed into the covers and I'm never gonna be able to get it out."

Trevor chuckled darkly. "You? Don't you mean Eva? Besides, it's just cheese...don't try and fucking tell me you've never eaten in a fucking bed before! Remember back in Sandy Shores when I was trying to have a good time and that melted Meteorite Bar in your pocket exploded and went everywhere? Looked like you shit the bed." 

"Arugh! I told you that I fucking forgot it was in there!"

"Yeah, it's a real turn off-"

"You weren't complaining when you were on all fuckin' fours-"

"We don't need to get into the technicalities of what happened." 

There was something there when Trevor said it...kind of like a lost loneliness and sadness but...that quickly became a lesser concern when Michael growled upon realizing the cheese was now sticking to his fingers and didn't really have anything to wipe them off, besides Trevor's shirt, which was also COVERED IN CHEESE-

Michael pushed Trevor away so they would be looking at each other. "Fuck this!"

Trevor gazed predatorily towards Michael. "Excuse me!"

Michael held out his cheese-coated arms and hands. "The cheese! It's getting fucking everywhere! Like glitter, can't get the stuff off of me!" 

Trevor growled. "Well, what do you want me to do about it, huh?"

"How the hell did you even get this shit all over yourself? It was like you intentionally rolled around in a cheese foundation, you sick fuck!"

"Cheese Angels."

"What?"

"Cheese Angels."

Michael didn't know whether to laugh or slap Trevor across the face. "This shit had better not be all over my damn kitchen wood tiles!"

"Uh-"

The mental possibilities of whatever God-forsaken things Trevor had been doing with that cheese mere moments ago ran through Michael's mind and none of them had good outcomes. He shook his head. 

"You know what? Never mind. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to fucking know. That’s future Michael's problem."

"More like Eva's problem-"

Michael pulled Trevor into a standing position. "You know what? Take off your clothes and lay down on your stomach. I'm gonna go get this fucking mess off of me!" Michael added as he went to the door. 

Trevor raised an eyebrow. "Hrm...I'll show you mine if you show me yours..."

"I mean it, T. I ain't gonna ask again."

He heard Trevor mumble something along the lines of a _selfish prick_.

Michael looked in the mirror to find his wifebeater smudged with the gross cheese that was also a mysterious ocherous shade. (though that might have just been the grotesque sweat that had been accumulating under that damn eggplant uniform) 

He sighed and took it off his frame, throwing it in the laundry bin behind him. He scratched idely at his beard and stalked into his bedroom were Trevor was currently lying on his stomach with his arms folded in front of him, his face hidden, only the top of his balding head showing, his legs bent upwards at 90 degree angles circling his feet around as though kicking some invisible, floating ball. Michael wasn't entirely unsurprised to find Trevor still covering his feet with socks.

Trevor raised his head lazily to look at Michael as he closed the door and went to round the bed and climb on top. 

Trevor was also still wearing his knickers...strange but Michael wasn't about to complain. He reached up and slowly pulled Trevor's underwear down his ass and legs, brushing the pads of his thumbs on Trevor's skin as he went. Trevor raised his knees and hips a bit to help. Michael threw the underwear somewhere insignificant in the room before slowly opening Trevor's legs into a V-shape to get a peek at the underside of his testicles in the darkness. 

He crawled his fingers upwards to Trevor’s asscheeks and opened him up slowly with his thumbs to gaze upon that glorious hole. Trevor said nothing outside of a soft intake of air from the feeling of Michael opening him up.

With no indication of Trevor trying to prevent the ineffable, Michael licked his lips, leaned over, and did what he had been wanting to do since he saw Trevor in that goddamn eggplant get-up.

No…since Trevor had walked back into his life after ten years….

Michael was still pissed off.

About everything.

The 24/7 insanity, the constant babysitting of an adult psycho, the nonsensical antics that caused nothing but annoyance and problems for Michael, the cheap pop shots at his wife and children, the constant reminders of a past he had taken extra care to conveniently forget at the bottom of a whiskey bottle and old Vinewood movies, the fact that karma had gotten him back and Trevor had neglected to save him this time...didn't even try or care enough to…

Oh, how had it gotten this bad…

Michael already knew the answer, but this was not the time to dwell on it now.

He slipped his mouth and nose into the opening and breathed in the scent of Trevor deeply before proceeding to lick at the puckered hole, feeling it tense on the tip of his tongue.

Michael chuckled darkly as he continued to rub his face around Trevor’s ass, sucking at his anus as Trevor moaned aloud and pressed his ass up back into Michael’s mouth. Michael spat up a bit into the space to begin pressing the tip of his tongue into the hole, pressing in and out. He then raised his hand to Trevor's testicles and tickled them. 

Trevor began to squirm at this point. He couldn't help it. Michael's stupid facial hair tickled. It didn't matter much because Michael reached up, putting his hand between the mattress and Trevor's stomach to prevent him from wiggling away. The tongue was slithering around his ass like the fucking snake Michael was...really it was just an extension of him after all. 

If had been anyone else Trevor would have blown their brains out...but with Michael...it was helping him release something. 

The betrayal, the anger, the sadness...

Back in Sandy Shores, when they had Mrs. Madrazo with them it had been much of the same. Michael and him got into an argument where they were up close and personal in each other's faces and then Michael kissed him and one thing lead to another. 

Trevor didn't know what one would find more surprising. The fact that Michael was the one who made the first move both times or that fact they hadn't killed each other yet. 

He had wanted to. He really did. He still did many ways. If only his damn gun hadn't jammed up in North Yankton...

He was brought back to the present when Michael harshly bit the skin of his left ass cheek and Trevor let out an embarrassingly loud moan. Michael ran his tongue over the new teeth imprints in an apology of some sort...

Trevor was just extremely fucking impressed the entire moment wasn't ruined by Michael bitching about his ass being dirty or tasting bad. Based on the disgusting slurping noises he was making back there, he seemed to be into it just as much as Trevor was. 

Trevor almost lost his breath when Michael was flipping him onto his back and crawling up his body to harshly kiss him...teeth mashing on teeth. 

It was euphorically rough but strangely gentle at the same time...as though there was a remise of an apology somewhere. 

Michael had come close to apologizing...perhaps...after Trevor saved his ass. 

It wasn't fucking fair. Michael always got whatever the hell he wanted. 

Why was it that Michael was here rather than the sheer amounts of other people Trevor had shown lesser mercy over lesser offenses? 

He didn't have time to dwell on it as Michael was snaking his hand down and taking Trevor's length and slowly pulling causing Trevor's eyes to practically roll to the back of his skull. 

"That's it...just like that..." Michael murmured to himself as he slowly pulled his own member out of his knickers. "Fuck T...Christ..." He went down to begin sucking and biting at Trevor's neck. 

Michael couldn't help but smirk when his tongue found a cheese shaving stuck to Trevor's collarbones.

He heard Trevor take a deep breath above him. "Did you mean it?"

Michael paused for a moment, annoyed he was being interrupted over something so mundane....that he frankly couldn't recall. 

"The fuck are you talking about?" 

Michael began licking at Trevor's sternum and his stupid ass FUCK COPS tattoo...(what was he, one of those Bleeter influencers who thought that saying 'thoughts & prayers' under memorial posts was a personality)

"The...the thing you said about...never having to see you again..."

Michael bit at the bottom of Trevor's ribs before answering with an annoyed growl. "I don't know. Perhaps I won't have said it if you hadn't left me for dead..."

Trevor said nothing more as Michael continued to nibble at Trevor's stomach...and the silence was a blessing but of course, Michael's damn curiosity got the best of him. 

"I mean...did you mean what you said?"

Trevor took a deep breath in, opening his eyes slightly to stare at the ceiling, thinking back through the insults. "Hmmm...about the liposuction thing? Because...well...I hate to say this-"

Michael pinched Trevor's inner thigh. "No asshat! Not that! The...when we were fighting Merryweather...after the...you said 'shoot the fat one'. Did you mean that?"

"How did you know I wasn't referring to Karl? If I had to listen to another one of his fucking bullshit pieces on fucking Cris Formage I was probably gonna shoot him mysel-"

"Trevor..."

Trevor shifted under him. "Do we have to talk about this now?"

"Well, you're the one who brought it up shit stain!"

"Oh, I'm _so sorry_ , sugar! Maybe if we weren't moving at a fucking snail's pace my mind wouldn't have been elsewhere!" 

Michael lifted himself to practically glare daggers towards Trevor. "Fine asshole! Let's just drop it! Lean on the headboards... _fucking slow place_...takin' n' never givin' I swear to God..."

Trevor said nothing which only managed to piss Michael off more. 

"Problem with that, T?"

Trevor finally started moving his ass to the headboard and leaned back against the pillows. "No."

"Good." Michael firmly said as he went to pull the rest of his knickers off and tossed them on the pile of clothes. 

He crawled across to take his prize, slightly irked when the heat of the moment was interrupted by whatever insistent need Trevor's near non-existent morality needed reassuring when the moonlight slowly slashed its fingers across Trevor's face, highlighting the pepperings of auric in his hazel eyes for a brief moment. 

And for an even briefer moment, Michael wasn't looking at the man who had tried to have him killed by an overzealous Chinese mob bastard but a past version of Trevor...the young Trevor he had pulled close during that blizzard, the one who pushed Tracey on the swing at the park the one day it didn't snow, who carried Jimmy on his shoulders after he got upset after some kid shoved him down the slide at the Cluckin' Bell play place...and suddenly...a much more unpleasant memory from the past began leaking to the future...when he was saying goodbye for the last time...knowing only one of them would make it out the other side of the Lundendorf job...

"The fuck's wrong with you?"

The memories evaporated and the moment was over and Michael was just left with his mouth agape and staring at Trevor confused...embarrassingly so...reminded him too fucking much of the times he accidentally fell asleep in class only for the teacher to then intentionally call on him for their own personal amusement as his adolescent self had scrambled for the answer...

"Huh? What?"

"You're crying."

Alarmed, Michael's hand immediately shot to his face and did, in fact, feel the tale-tell signs of the salty streaks on his face. "No, I'm not."

Trevor just rolled his eyes. "Mikey, you could be foaming at the mouth for all I care, but if you don't get over here and finish what you fucking started, I will personally shove a rake up your ass!"

Michael chuckled fondly, putting the borderline supernatural occurrence behind him. "Kinky."

"Hey! That's my line! Get your own!" Trevor snarled as Michael reached over to the side drawer, feeling around in the dark for the bottle of Super Bum Lubricant. 

"Oh? I thought I was an unoriginal hack with no talent?" Michael smugly replied as he shut the drawer with a loud clank. 

"You know what asshole? I should have just gone with that nice red-haired hooker we saw on the way here. Would've talked way less too!"

"Shut the fuck up! I'm still pissed at you!" Michael snarled as he began to glob the lube onto his fingers and reached over to pull Trevor's ankles towards himself and opened his legs up a bit. Trevor helped by lifting his hips a bit...well as much as he could help...never was much help now was he? 

Michael entered the index finger first, feeling around in the somewhat less tight space, and began pressing deeper and deeper, searching for that _oh so glorious_ spot. Michael really hoped he didn't accidentally scratch Trevor while up there because he honestly would never hear the end of it. 

Oh right...

He forgot about that little part...

That was bringing up some particular things...memories that were best left in the past...but always seemed to leak out at the worst times...

Michael shoved the next finger in, brushing over Trevor's prostate and making him jump like a jack in the box. 

_“In Greek mythology, there is a story called Pandora's box in which the god of all the other gods in Olympus by the name of Zeus, created the first woman and called her Pandora. She seemed like a blessing at first, but really, she was a curse, used to punish mankind for Prometheus stealing fire from heaven. Zeus sent Pandora down to earth with a box, telling her that she must never open it. But eventually, curiosity got the better of her and she ended up opening the box, releasing all of the horrors into the world such as fear, anger, greed, and illness. When all the monsters had escaped there was one thing that remained…the only good thing in the box…hope. I suppose in a way we all are given a box when we're born that has both good and bad qualities but always has a shred of hope, supposedly. But what happens when you open the box and hope isn’t there? What do I do then, doc?”_

_Dr. Friedlander nodded, taking in what Michael just said, looking down at his watch that ticked mindlessly by, constantly reminding both of them that time was money…though that sentence held a double standard for both of them._

_“Well, that is an interesting inquiry and I think it is a good thing to ponder on for the next session because unfortunately, that is all the time we have for today…”_

Michael, in the present, was scissoring Trevor open, listening to the delicious noises from the man beneath him while simultaneously using his other hand to jerk himself off, groaning as he got into the motions and felt the leftover lube and precome slick up his member. 

He removed the fingers in Trevor's anus before touching the head of his slicked-up penis to the shivering rim.

"Fuckin' A..." Michael murmured under his breath as he pushed inside. Trevor moaned aloud, losing his gluttonous muscles as Michael slowly pushed inside. 

_Depression is scary thing. It felt like Michael was just fighting an invisible force every single day then no one else seemed to be able to see. It was like fighting an uphill battle with himself, until one day, he finally got tired._

_Some people last longer, some people don’t._

  
_For most people their depression came from some chemical imbalance, perhaps a source of trauma like child abuse or being horrifically raped…but for Michael he couldn't help but believe that the way he was feeling was entirely his fault, like it was some kind of divine punishment._

_At first, it was somewhat manageable…but then the silence, the static energy, the calmness, and the intense normality of it all would become too much at times. some days it felt like Michael was looking through a postcard to his own life, his own wife, his own kids, and his own house. Seeing it in the photograph on the front of a card as a long distant dream but never being able to reach it himself._

_So eventually he just gave up…there was nothing much he could do anyway to change it…_

_He remembered vividly taking his children to a Fatal Incursion concert…the whole heavy metal thing wasn’t really his style…_

_A good father would have asked his children about the band members, the music, what they liked or disliked about the concert…but he didn’t…he felt nothing…so he did nothing._

_Well…that wasn’t entirely true…he remembered screaming at Jimmy for changing the radio stations which started the long and slow spiral downwards in their relationship. How Jimmy had been singing all the songs, being happy and carefree until Michael had snapped and he watched his son’s eyes welling with tears…but Michael just had so much fucking anger inside of him…he just couldn’t stop barking at his child._

_He only stopped himself when he was about to hit his kids._

_No matter how angry he got…he never laid a hand (or belt or foot or knee or elbow or head or cord or paddle or...yeah) on his children out of anger._

_Jesus…was this what it had come to?_

_He was neglectful but never physical? That was his standard now...or how it had always been?_

  
_He remembered when his wife took him to the movies to see a rerun of Rum Runner in 3-D…_

_He hated it. He hated himself for that._

_But …there were too many people on their phones, too many people talking, too crowded…he probably got into a fistfight point at one point…he was pretty sure his wife had abandoned him to walk home alone that night._

_He remembered going to a bar…drowning himself in the bottom of a Macbeth Scottish whiskey shot glass._

_He woke up in a sewer drain…_

Trevor allowed Michael to pound him. 

In and out. 

In and out. 

Michael held him close. 

Michael had gone down on him...he had worshiped Trevor's body not even a few mere moments ago...he still was...

Kissing, lapping, and sucking at Trevor's neck and chest and running his fingers delicately up his arms and shoulders... Usually, it was the other way around. 

There was something...desperate in the way Michael was holding and kissing him...with a tense loneliness, dejection, shame, and regret that was palpable...they were the same but so different.

It had been like this in Sandy shores...but this didn't quite feel like that...in fact, this reminded him way too much of another time...

Something he hadn't really realized until Wade confirmed Michael was in LS, very much alive rather than food for the worms upstate. 

The last time...he and Michael had done this before Michael's "death"... had been very much the same.

Trevor had just thought he was trying to say sorry with his body, trying to delay the ineffable, trying to pull Trevor back in and away from Brad after realizing he was going to be left behind...

It was now that he realized that Michael had not been apologizing.

He had been saying goodbye...

Just like he was unconsciously doing now. 

_Michael had wanted to commit suicide several times in his life...the earliest point being when he was three, his mother had grabbed his stubby toddler arm and dragged her cigarette across his soft, baby skin...the remaining charcoals faded into a scar one could still see on his forearm if they looked close enough...a permanent reminder that he was a mistake...a poison...a behemoth that could never give nor receive love._

_Hell, his own father had abandoned him and his mother wanted nothing to do with him once he reached a certain age (though it was laughable to say she wanted much to do with him before then), only contacting him when she needed Michael to sweet talk Larry into keeping quiet about MacIntosh to the authorities..._

_He always had this...darkness inside him...for as long as he could remember. It was like an empty void that sucked everything down and there were many times where he felt nothing at all._

_He remembered catching a bird when he was around seven years old and twisting the delicate neck until the head snapped clean off. He felt nothing. Nothing at all._

_Not sadness, not pity, not remorse, not anger, not joy...nothing. Just a grey, empty, bottomless nothing._

_But when he felt the...suicidal way...the times when he genuinely wanted to go to sleep and never wake or just collapse where he stood...being dragged to hell in an instant...it was never really something he intended to act on._

_More of a passing, compulsive thought or sometimes ones that lasted for longer than that..._

_There were three main reasons for this...the first beginning his innate curiosity with the world and wishing to see the outcomes of certain situations (even if they were ones that weren't necessarily the most enjoyable), the second being the fear of death...or more specifically the fear of the unknown...Hamlet had honestly summed it up best, and then of course the third being his family...Amanda wasn't exactly the most qualified to be the breadwinner for the family nor the most subtable protector...Michael had made a lot of enemies in both the past and the past and the present...one of whom was currently gasping beneath him and the others who were no doubt planning some sort of heavy-handed punishment in retribution for this more recent crime._

_But knowing there was a way out...it...helped._

_And with the added third reason...he started writing letters...just in case...one never could be too sure exactly what they would do when they were left alone to the vicious claws of their own thoughts in the cloak of silence and darkness._

_But after Lundendorf..._

_After he was humiliated by Hayden on the golf course..._

_After he paid Dave his first of many hush checks..._

_After Tracey got her first tattoo..._

_After Amanda caught him visiting strip clubs and prostitutes after looking through the bank statements and began her spree of revenge cheating as a result..._

_After he caught Jimmy smoking pot for the first time..._

_After he saw his daughter hunched over the toilet, murmuring self-deprecated statements she probably picked up from Fame or Shame..._

_After he found Amanda face down in the kitchen in a pool of her own vomit, shivering from alcohol poisoning..._

_The temptation became so much bigger and for the first time Michael had felt like an obstacle more than a cornerstone in his family dynamic._

_They really didn't need him anymore. They had the house, money for their little meaningless activities and the only times any of them really wanted him around was when they needed money or his signature or the occasional rescue._

_And then he started attempting...well...more like rehearsing for the big moment that...if he were completely honest with himself...was never going to actually come._

_Passively suicidal...at least that's what Friedlander had called it._

_It wasn't all bad though...if he hadn't been in the garage at the time Franklin decided to repo his son's car...well...then he won't have gotten to meet Franklin._

_So every time, he would write a new letter to his family before he attempted. He probably has about 30 or 40 letters stacked up somewhere because he was too much of a coward to go through with it...backing out at the last minute...where no one would ever know. But at the same time, he could never part with the letters, as though they had become a part of him._

_One particular incident was the day of Jimmy's high school graduation. He had gone to a parking garage that was attached adjacently to the Central Los Santos Medical Center. The irony of the entire thing was not lost on him._

_He had three distinct letters snuggled and neatly folded into an envelope and tucked on the windshield under the dashboard...just in case._

_He knew he wasn't actually going to jump as he felt the elevator carrying him up, watching out of the corner of his eye through the scratched glass doors a group of nurses beat a patient with a flashlight who had just been pulled from an ambulance while feeling an odd sense of both dread and electric excitement coursing through his veins._

_He remembered there not being a lot of cars and that only added to the fuel._

_No one to see which fed the monster within him that constantly demanded the attention of the mysteries surrounding how he jumped would be perceived. Was he scared? Was he screaming? What was he feeling as he fell? Remorse? Guilt? Euphoria?_

_He could even see his photograph on the Weazel News report with an apathetic reporter droning on and on about the "tragety they totally felt sorry for."_

_And he was running...sprinting...to the edge...it was so close...the feeling of release was right fucking there-_

_He caught himself on the top of the wall railing just before the drop._

_Jesus Christ, what was he doing?_

_He turned right back around, got into the elevator, walked down to his car and_

Trevor felt moisture on his shoulder that was very different from Michael's mouth. It was much colder than the hot saliva dragged along the rough underside of Michael's tongue onto Trevor's bare skin. 

And his breathing sounded...a little more...hitched...?

But he really didn't have to dwell on that because he felt the familiar warmness pooling in his stomach and his toes curling in his socks from the dick currently skimming against his prostate to Michael's soft stomach rubbing against his own member with each thrust, to the large arms encircling him...holding him close. 

And the smell of sweat, booze, garlic, and cigarettes filled Trevor's nostrils in ecstasy. He had turned his head to sniff deeply into Michael's hair 

He wrapped his legs tighter around Michael's back and his fingers found their way to those shoulder blades, digging his nails in slowly...

_All those years ago, when Michael had Trevor in the same position...it was really difficult._

_Their relationship at that point...if one could even call it that at the state it was in...was probably the worst it had ever been. (then 2013 happened)_

_Regardless, letting Trevor go had been a lot fucking harder than expected. When he had turned himself into the FIB and then met Dave Norton, cutting the deal seemed easy._

_He had been so fucking pissed at all the grand gestures to madness and fucking lunancy and degeneracy Trevor had fallen into. Every time Michael showed up to do a job it seemed like Trevor had some new problem to bring to the table and the fact that Brad was fucking around didn't help make things much better._

_He had heard them one time...talking about how they were going to drop Michael from their stupid little group they were forming because Michael had gone too fucking soft._

_Well, excuse him for actually wanting to have a goddamn conscience!_

_It was like putting down a terminally ill dog. Trevor had gotten so bad to the point where there were genuine times Michael legitamentlay thought Trevor was going to kill him and that had scared him....all the...and he just...Michael couldn't fucking do that shit anymore._

_His family deserved better. His kids deserved to have a dad who was at home rather than spending months at a time away doing illegal activities. Amanda needed to have an emotionally supportive husband who was there to help her raise the kids...not that coming to Los Santos made any of that better._

_He was done with the snow...he was done with the family drama shit...the cops...the FIB and IAA constantly on his ass...fucking Trevor..._

_The entire thing was kind of like a suicide in a way. He got out...he got to pull the string to the trap door._

_But without the dying or the pain to his family and he got to take the only people he really cared about with him._

_Or so he thought._

_Because as in everything, else he couldn't just live a peaceful life. He had done the RIGHT THING...he deserved that much at least._

_But no matter what he did, the past always seemed to find him...whether it be in his mind or a meth serial killer from his past walking back into his life._

Trevor came first with a shout, his entire body vibrating. He half expected Michael to get all bitchy about the mess on his stomach but he said nothing. 

Just continued to thrust to finish himself off inside of Trevor. 

The cold wetness was increasing now...the huffing became wet sniffles.

Oh. 

Michael was crying. 

_Michael wasn't sure what the future would bring._

_Hell, he wasn't even sure if he was gonna be alive tomorrow for Trevor might kill him in his sleep._

_But he did know that this journey was going to end almost like it did in North Yankton...with one of them killing the other._

_Michael knew he couldn't let Trevor kill him. He had a family to think about after all._

_He knew the FIB wasn't gonna let Trevor walk after this. Steve was already on edge enough as it was...and with Trevor always having to be "against the machine" they knew silence wasn't something they could bribe or threaten from Trevor...so they were probably gonna get him or the kid to do it._

_Probably the kid._

_No one in the FIB knew about this._

_No one in the FIB knew about Sandy Shores._

_And when the heat came...and it was gonna come...Trevor would have to be the first to go._

_And even after all this time..._

_After everything Trevor had said and done and all they had been through together, Michael knew he was going to have to be the one pulling the trigger._

_Trevor was his creation. The reason he was like this in the first was because of Michael._

_That made him Michael's responsibility...Michael's problem._

_But Michael also knew he couldn't do it._

_Back in North Yankton, he had a clear shot but wasn't able to take it..._

_He didn't want to kill Trevor._

_He didn't know if he could see Trevor die again._

Trevor laid there like a rag doll, his hands limp by either side of them. 

His mind was desperately trying to catch up with what was happening. 

He could probably count on his hand the number of times he had seen Michael truly cry...the man was a wall of pent-up emotion and before the whole betrayal thing in North Yankton, Trevor had thought the he had been given the rare privilege of getting see what was behind that mask...but he guessed not. 

Or maybe he had. 

Besides, Michael had cried during their last time back then too. 

_He was going to have to kill Trevor._

_He didn't want to._

_Why God why?_

_It's not fair._

_It's not fair._

_It's not fucking fair._

Michael felt himself getting close and shoved into Trevor as deeply as he could one last time as the orgasm and seman came in waves...releasing deeply into Trevor.

But another thing released too and he couldn't stop it. It was like there was dams inside of his head and all the pent-up anger and sadness and grief and depression and existential crisis and fear and stress came boiling to the surface, completely out of control and as soon as his testicles realeased so did his emotions and he found himself fucking bawling as he came. 

It was bad. 

He wasn't tearing up like before. 

He was fucking sobbing on Trevor, still balls deep in Trevor. 

Embarrassing, humiliating, unthinkable...

There wasn't a word in the English language that probably could accurately describe the level of shame and humiliation Michael was feeling. 

For a moment, he found himself like a deer in the headlights with his face buried into Trevor's neck, hidden away from Trevor's judgemental eyes that Michael would have sooner taken Mr.K's torture session than have to look into. 

All he seemed to be able to do was hiccup, sniffle and cry like a teenage girl...and he couldn't stop himself either. 

And Trevor just lay there, completely limp and unmoving, saying absolutely nothing, seemingly as bewildered and terrified as Michael was. 

All attempts to get his emotions and breathing under control were for nothing. 

Then the shock faded away...giving way to an intense panic that stuck his insides like a conflagrant whip burning at his insides...

And what could only be described as a Herculean effort...he managed to pull himself out of Trevor, leaving an oozing trail of cum and sweat from Trevor's hole to the inside of Michael's thighs and without looking up, rolled off of Trevor and turned on his side, facing away from Trevor. 

The smart thing to have done in that moment would have been to have sprung out of the bed at top speeds, grabbed his pillow that was currently resting under Trevor's head, pulled up his boxers, and gone to sleep in one of his children's rooms, leaving Trevor to his own devices (though that was never a wise decision) ...or at the very least attempted to drag his disgusting body to the shower to attempt to wipe away the evidence of the humiliation and pleasure and pain he had just endured. 

But he found himself unable to move. Completely paralyzed where he was as though there was some invisible force keeping him there. He couldn't even reach for the covers to properly cover himself. 

The only thing he managed to do was fold in and hug himself and cover his hand with one mouth in an attempt to deafen the sobbing noise. 

He felt Trevor move to a sitting position beside him and could feel those eyes staring at his back. 

Michael so badly wanted to grab something to throw at Trevor so he would fucking leave Michael to deal with this on his own or at the very least scream at Trevor to go away but he found himself worried that would only make matters ten times worse than they already are. And as stupid as it sounded, he was fucking terrified of Trevor actually seeing him cry. 

He flinched when he felt Trevor's hand on his shoulder and felt him move closer. 

Michael didn't move. Just held his hand tighter at his mouth and forced his leaking eyes to close...in an unconscious, childish mindset of _"if I can't see him, then he can't see me."_

Jesus Christ, no wonder he always got the shit beat out of him as a kid. 

He waited in anxious and baited anticipation for Trevor's sneer comments, humiliation, and snickering to come to deliver the final blow to his bruised ego. 

But it never came...

Instead, he felt Trevor lay down behind him and then curling around his body protectively. His inked arms slowly around Michael's body while wrapping a leg around his knees and sticky stomach as he pulled Michael's body into his. 

And Michael was even more surprised to find his body unconsciously curled into the warmth, drinking in the deceptive tender sense of protection and security. 

He felt Trevor's lips brushed against the shell of his ear, then the skin behind the ear, and then down his neck...when Trevor ran out of skin he could reach with his lips without releasing the secure hold on the rest of Michael's body, he went back up, lips peppering soft kisses here and there until his face was comply buried into Michael's hair, pressing audible kisses to Michael's disgusting and greasy scalp, still damp from the Eggplant uniform helmets. 

They both didn't say anything...Michael eventually overtaking control of his crying until he was simply breathing deeply and barely shaking.

The only thing that could be heard was their breathing and an occasional caressing noise of Trevor pressing kisses to Michael's scalp. 

Michael decided to not open his eyes or mouth until morning. 

* * *

Lester awoke first, feeling more like he had arisen from the dead than actually been a part of the living. He was even more surprised to find someone had covered him with a blanket. He shifted slowly, letting all his bones creak and crack back into place. He leaned up against his cane and that was when he saw what a God-awful mess the kitchen was.

Cheese...cheese literally everywhere. Lester adjusted his glasses and wobbled over to the kitchen to find about a dozen different bird cheese sculptures, lined up like a fair prize contest on the island. On the floor, near the stove, there was a large cheese outline of a man that looked oddly close to what people thought snow angels were supposed to look like.

There was a trail of cheesy boot prints that lead out of the kitchen. Lester followed them up the stairs and to Michael's master bedroom were the door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open a crack to find a pile of clothes near the doorway that led to a broken lamp and tipped over nightstand. 

On top of the bed laid a sleeping Michael and Trevor, literally curled in on top of each other, butt ass naked.

"Unreal." Lester murmured under his breath before turning to shut the door and lock it this time.

Franklin was awake as well when Lester headed down the stairs. Seeing him standing there in Michael's striped pajamas, stepping on his tiptoes to prevent stepping in the cheese mess while getting a glass of water for the ibuprofen tablets in his hand was a little too ironic for the entire situation. He looked up and gave Lester a soft, uncharacteristic smile before motioning to the mess and the bird statues as he slipped the red pills onto his tongue and drained the glass of water. 

"Man, what the fuck happened last night after I went to sleep?" 

Lester sighed, rubbing his nose as he went to snatch the bottle of pills Franklin was holding for his raging hangover. "Ignorance is bliss."

"Man, what?" 

Lester shook two pills into his hand, sighing as the painfulness of his wasting disease waking up his digestive system. Oh man, was his gastrologist going to actually kill him for this one. 

"Trust me. You don't want to know."

"Okay...well I was going to cook us breakfast but Michael's out of the normal kind of cheese and I am scared to touch-" Franklin pointed to the bird statues- "whatever...that is." 

"Yeah, I would just skip the cheese for now..." He saw out of the corner of his eye, Franklin reaching over to wet a rag under the faucet. 

"Sure man but the scrambled eggs sure gonna be dry."

"Hey, I'm sure it will be better than the shit Trevor thinks is food...and if Michael's in a bad mood just get him some coffee and ignore him."

Franklin chuckled and bent down to start wiping up the remnants of cheese on the floor. "Yeah, I suppose that shit's facts of life that's fo' sure."

"What are you doing?"

"Cleaning. Come on, man. I ain't cooking in no mess like this." Franklin murmured as he went to wash down the now cheese-covered rag. 

* * *

Michael peeled his eyelids open as the piercing, harsh sunlight just began to peek through what little of the glass the curtains didn't shield from the room. 

And the raging hangover that Michael had started to feel towards the front of his head wasn't helping either. he tried to shift into a more comfortable position to wake the rest of his body up when he felt something around his waist and legs and something that resembled breathing on the back of his neck.

To his abject horror, he looked down to find that he currently had a pair of tattooed arms and a leg draped over his naked body that wasn't even covered by any sheets.

Oh, shit.

Oh, God. 

Oh no.

He turned his head as much as he could in the surprisingly tight hold Trevor had on him...to find Trevor fast asleep with his mouth slightly agape, drooling onto the pillow cradling their heads...which only made to make the entire situation all the more real for him and simultaneously far worse.

He slowly removed Trevor's leg, then his arms...carefully while bitting his lip to guarantee no stray noises came from his mouth to disturb Trevor. Once he was freed, he removed himself looking back to the bed.

But Trevor was none the wiser, completely oblivious to the world and lying there like a stretched-out piece of dough, his limbs lazily placed in all directions. 

Fucking typical!

Then the entire memories came flooding back and the crippling guilt came back. 

_He had to stop doing stupid things..._

He thought about showering but even the thought of having to stand anywhere naked was too unbearable to think about. He unplugged his phone, went to the closet to shove on some underwear, jeans and polo before marching downstairs. 

He was surprised to find there wasn't any cheese smashed on the stairs or cheese shaving everywhere. 

Even more surprising was when the smell of breakfast hit his nostril and he heard the sound of Weasel News echoing through his living room, some reporter droning on and on about the Union Depository hesit. 

Michael found the kitchen almost completely clean...no signs of cheese horror anywhere and a delicious food spread of eggs, bacon, biscuits, toast and cinnamon rolls spread across the island. 

If Michael hadn't felt so sick to his stomach remembering the events that had transpired the night before, he would have found the spread delicious. 

Franklin was sitting out on the couch in the living room still in Michael’s oversized pajamas, watching the television and gave Michael a small smile when he realized he was standing in the kitchen.

“Hey man!” Franklin said cheerfully as he went back to watching the news.

“Oh…hey. You do all this. “

Franklin just shrugged in response. “Yeah, only took me about thirty minutes…” 

“Really? We’re more of a takeout family ourselves- “

“Well…I mean If you don’t like the food- “

“No no no! It’s…it’s good…thanks for cleaning up the place and makin’ the food. It looks good and smells great.” Michael replied as he went to go join Franklin out of the living room.

Franklin blinked. “Yeah man…I didn't really know what to do with those-cheese birds-I guess you could call em…so I just wrapped him up in Styrofoam and carefully put ‘em in the cheese drawer.”

The painful reminder of the man that was upstairs tainting his bed flash through Michael's mind as well as the horrifically disastrous cheese smell that seem to be permanently stuck to the fibers of Trevor's clothes it made Michael feel even more sick.

“Hey you OK man?” Franklin said as he raised an eyebrow of concern.

“Yeah yeah, it's nothing, don't worry about it. Where’s Lester?”

“Oh, he left. His phone was blowing up with text from Paige…something about the metal.”

Something in that made Michael feel a bit panicked, the full weight of what was going on fully gravitating towards him. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“No man. Lester’s handling it. I’ve just been watching the news you know seeing how much they know they haven't really mentioned any suspects yet, so I think we're in the clear.”

For some reason that pissed Michael off. “You don’t know that. The news never tells the whole story if they truly knew who did it. They wouldn't show that shit on the news.”

Suspicion rose into Franklin’s eyes. “Hey man what you talking about?”

“It means you don’t underestimate anyone. Don’t underestimate the FIB, the IAA, Merryweather, the cops or anyone else for that matter! You got that!”

“Man, if the police sketches, they had of you are anything to go by, they don’t know shit. Couldn’t even get your eye color right.”

Panic rose in Michael’s chest. “What? Police sketches?” He turned to the projector screen but found the weather was on now.

Of course…nothing seemingly could go right for him today…

“Yeah, my boy Lamar was telling me the other day about them short term memory loss. You know? False memory and shit? Crazy how yo’ mind could be playin’ tricks on you like that.”

“Oh yeah? And what about the cameras? That false memory apply to them too?”

“Fuck man. Lester, Paige and Rickie are handling it! You need to chill man! Damn!”

Michael snapped towards Franklin. “The fuck did you just say to me? You don’t talk to me that way! Especially all the shit I’ve done for you too!”

Franklin jumped back a little but there was real anger blazing in his eyes. “Shit! I did a lot of stuff for you too! You treat all your friends like this when they there for you!”

Michael rubbed his hand over his face, carefully schooling his breathing and taking care to think over his next words. “I’m sorry Frank…it’s not…it’s not you, man. It’s…just…”

The angry expression on Franklin’s face quickly changed to one of genuine concern. “Hey, man…you alright?”

Michael chuckled without any humor behind it. “Who is?”

“Hey…look man…maybe you should try sitting down. I’ll go get you some water and Ibeuprophin.”

The walls…everything…was closing in on him. He felt like everyone in the world was giving him a judgmental stare.

Franklin was already returning from the kitchen with the glass of water and two tablets of Ibeuprophin which Michael took with a gruff “thanks” before handing the empty glass back to Franklin.

“Hey man you sure you're alright? Maybe we should sit down, okay? Try to get some food in you…”

Michael waved him off. He didn’t think he could sit down…it was too quiet. He needed to-

“Hey, Mike…where you going, man?”

Oh. His feet were already taking him to the door. His own body knew him better than he did.

“Out.” Michael called back as he began stomping into his sneakers and grabbing his jacket from the chair in the foyer, he had thrown on a random chair.

“Out? Out where?”

“Just for a walk.”

Franklin was behind him. “Hey man…you sure you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m perfectly fine.” Michael murmured, more to himself, as he went to turn the doorknob before an idea to kill two birds with one stone and felt his pockets to make sure he had his phone with him. “And hey, Frank?”

Franklin who had already headed back into the living room peeked his head around the corner. “Yeah?”

“Could you text me when Trevor leaves?”

He didn’t get a response because in all honesty…it really didn’t matter what Franklin said. Michael wasn’t gonna be back until later…way later…and Trevor may be a psychopath, but he had more sense than the hang around in a place where he wasn’t wanted.

Michael walked down the driveway and then out into the sidewalk to start his long journey to this favorite lonely spot on the pier to look at where his boat once was…or perhaps he would go to Singleton’s to mope.

Hell, he might walk his ass all the way to Sandy Shores.

Anything to get away from here…those damn faded memories…


End file.
